


All The Little Lights

by ScrollingKingfisher



Category: Supernatural
Genre: But sort of at the end, Dean in Space, M/M, Mark of Cain, Not overly happy, end of the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5146730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScrollingKingfisher/pseuds/ScrollingKingfisher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end has come. And Dean is still here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Little Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick one about if Dean had taken death up on the offer of being launched into space. Be warned, it's not exactly the most uplifting thing I've ever written.

   The clock was ticking on the universe. The stars were going out.

 

   Everyone knew that the end was pretty much nigh, but on board the fair ship Celestia, nobody mentioned it. They didn’t need to.

 

   Nobody really knew what year it was any more, there were so many different calendars that it was hardly worth keeping track. The two historians out of the population of two hundred were almost certain that it was a century since they made contact with another ship, three hundred years since they had docked at a planet, a solid decade since they had seen a star. They told them that the legend of Earth might not be just a myth, but it would have been destroyed so long ago that it might as well have been.

 

   And that was what kept Captain Novak up at night. He might not know much about mechanics, but he knew that they needed to find somewhere to fuel up, and they needed to do it soon, within a year or they would freeze or starve, whichever came first. A tiny part of his brain told him that he was only prolonging the inevitable, but he ignored it with all the stubborn human will to survive that he could. He tried to instil hope into his crew and he trusted Dean, their master mechanic, to keep them going.

 

   Dean was a strange man. Not strange in the way that the way that the people who were not human were strange, with their different bodies and instincts and customs, but there was always something… off about him.

 

   Usually he didn’t talk much, preferring to converse with the engines than with people. He was often heard singing to the machinery, ancient anthems such as ‘eye of the tiger’. He must have been a folk singer at some point.

 

   He argued with the historians a lot. No, earth was definitely not just a fairy tale. Burgers had not originated from the Sulta galaxy. The battle of Xanthamus Five lasted for twenty years, not eighteen, thank you very much. How did he know? Well, he was there!

 

   When people brought up the fact that the battle of Xanthamus five had happened over seven hundred years ago, dean would just purse his lips and walk away. People often said that he was a pathological liar, but Captain Novak didn’t know. There was always something in his eyes, something ancient and endless and empty.

 

   Nobody had ever asked Dean how old he was. He had boarded several decades ago, with nothing more than the clothes on his body and an old bag slung over his back, but Captain Novak’s memory must be getting faulty because he had always seemed to look the same as he did now.

 

   The only people Dean talked to regularly, apart from himself, were the children. When he got time off he would always go to the school and tell stories, fables of Earth and two brothers who went riding around on the surface on something called an impala. His laugh lines would stand out on his face as their wondering eyes absorbed the tales of monsters and angels and a world where people didn’t believe that there was anything beyond their own, small planet. It was a rather unrealistic set up, but it kept the children entertained.

 

   The only fable he didn’t like was that old traditional one of the Space Man. For whatever reason he would always walk from the room with a pinched expression whenever someone started telling the tale of the man who was found floating in deep space, frozen solid, but when the ice melted he was alive. Some of the versions said that he was the herald of the end of the world.

 

.o0o.

 

   Staring at the screen, the captain can’t quite believe it. A star? Enough energy to power them for a century? He can’t see it personally, but Dean must have better eyesight than him because he insists that he had enhanced it and he can see it. The readings check out too, heat and light and infra-red.

 

   This might be their salvation. He feels a stupendous relief. Life might be doomed, but at least it won’t happen on his watch. He won’t have to see his people die.

 

   The captain feels like Dean has lifted a weight from his shoulders that had been there since he saw the dropping fuel gauge. “Time for a celebration!” he roars and the people cheer, scattering to fetch the alcohol and stoke the ovens to prepare a meal the likes of which they haven’t seen for a decade of rationing.

 

   The night rolls on and everyone is smiling, the children with plain happiness at the abundance and the adults with relief, even Dean comes up from the engine room to join the revels, although he doesn’t eat much. The party goes on well into the night, and they all stagger off to their beds with grins on their faces

 

.o0o.

 

   The night is quiet. He couldn’t remember a night so silent.

 

   Too silent.

 

   Pulling on a dressing gown as he yawns, he pulls himself from his bunk and walks on sleep stiff legs to the control panel where the lights flash, reading the life signs of his people.

 

   Only there are far fewer lights flashing tonight than there should be. Only about half. As he watches, another dozen dim and go out. Frowning, he smacks his hand against the panel. It wouldn’t be the first time the bastard thing had broken.

 

   Maybe there was something wrong with the mechanics? Still grumbling to himself, he gets up and stumbles down the corridor to Dean’s office, the metal floor cold under his feet.

 

   With a quick knock, he lets himself in. He is the captain, after all. He is surprised to find Dean still awake, despite the early hour of the morning, dressed in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the strange tattoo on his forearm visible. He looks up and gives a tired smile when he sees the captain enter, then turns back to the displays.

 

   “Morning, Cap. What are you doing up?”

 

   “How many years have we known each other, Dean? Call me Sean. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep, then my console broke. Could you come and fix it? What are you up to, anyway?”

 

   “Killing everybody on board.”

 

   Sean chuckles at Dean’s dry sense of humour, and Dean sends him a half-smile, but there’s something sad about it. Like he isn’t joking, but it would be better for everybody if they all thought he was.

 

   He looks down at the monitoring panel, and sees that half the lights are off on Dean’s, too. “Wow, yours is broken as well. System failure?”

 

   Dean laughs again, and there’s something broken about it. “Yeah, you could call it that. The system is definitely failing.” he presses a button, and instead of the lights coming back on, a dozen more wink off.

 

   “What are you doing?”

 

   “I’m flooding the vents with that gas we found on the prism moon. They won’t feel a thing, lucky assholes.”

 

   Sean can’t quite decide whether Dean is just in a bad mood because he was woken in the middle of the night or something else has happened. Maybe the historians are insisting that there had never been such a species as angels again? Dean’s sense of humour isn’t nearly this morbid usually. Sean feels a flicker of unease. There is something wrong.

 

   “Also I’ve turned off the engines, ‘cos there’s nowhere left to refuel.” That explained the silence.

 

   “What? What about the star you saw?”

 

   “I faked the readings, easy enough to do. There was never a star. Slipped some sleeping pills into the food. Your dose must have been too small.”

 

   “Dean, this isn’t funny anymore.”

 

   “This was never funny, Sean.” There is no humour in his eyes, but Dean is still and calm, a juxtaposition to the whirlwind of dread inside himself.

 

   Dean seems more urgent now, though, and he flicks another set of switches, one, two, three, four, and the rest of the lights blip out one by one, leaving only two blinking solemnly back at him. Dean abruptly stands, looking down at the captain, and Sean sees that thing in Dean’s eyes again, the ancient, cold one.

 

   “Did you just kill my crew?” he asks hysterically, willing Dean to say no.

 

   “Yes,” Dean says simply. Sean feels sick. This has to be a bad joke, but something at the back of his mind and the look in Dean’s eyes is telling him that it’s not. He feels ill. He just sat there, did nothing. Why didn’t he stop him?

 

   “What are you?” he whispers, not sure that he wants to know the answer.

 

   “Doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry about this, Sean. You’re a good man. I like you. Plus I know your family from way, way back. So I think you deserve the truth. I’ll tell it like a story, yeah? Once, there were two brothers and an angel, and they tried to save the world. And they did, but the universe decided to screw with them.” He pulls a bottle of golden liquid from his bag and unscrews the cap, taking a deep gulp. He holds it out with a wink and Sean hesitates before he takes it, his eyes widening at the strength of the alcohol. Dean takes it back and sighs, taking another swig.

 

   “So you might have noticed that the universe is ending. And to think all I was worried about once was one little planet.” He smiles to himself, as if his words make any sense at all. “Can you believe I didn’t think aliens existed? I was fighting monsters and angels, and I was all ‘they can’t exist, we’re the only ones here’. Well, not the first time I was proved wrong. All gone now though, all those other planets, all those other species. The universe has had it. I can feel it. In here,” he taps his skull, “No one else out there. We’re the last ones. All dead, kaput, the end. Not a single star or planet. No people. No reason to keep going really.”

 

   He laughs and there’s an insane edge to it. Sean wonders when he’s going to wake up from this nightmare, it feels too real. Dean eyes him.

 

   “You remind me of Sammy sometimes. My brother. Doesn’t matter how many worlds I outlive, I’m always gonna remember him. Those stories I tell? They were never stories. I’ve been around a long, long time. Too long.” Dean swigs again, then looks off into the distance with dead eyes.

 

   “I don’t really like killing people, you know. That’s not who I am. But you’ve gotta understand, we’re all dead anyway, but I couldn’t do that to them. I couldn’t let them know. Didn’t want them to suffer. And they would have done, trust me. You would all have starved until it was just me, floating out here all alone. Again.” Dean seems to almost be pleading now, looking deep into his eyes as though searching for forgiveness.

 

   “That was why I told them to throw a party. Better to go out on a high, you know? While they can still hope.”

 

   Suddenly he straightens, as though someone has whispered something in his ear. The door creaks open, even though there should be no other living things on the ship, and he smiles properly for the first time that Sean’s ever seen, his green eyes sparking back to life.

 

   “Hey Cas. Long time no see.” The man strides in, his unnaturally blue eyes glancing over him before he smiles back at Dean. Sean thinks he sees the same kind of age in those eyes as he sees in Dean’s.

 

   “Hello Dean. You are correct, it has been several thousand years.” Sean watched with detached fascination as the man bent and pressed a tender kiss to Dean’s forehead, as Dean smiled and closed his eyes and leaned up into it. Maybe he hadn’t been lying when he had told all those women he was taken.

 

   “Last time, huh?”

 

   “Yes. It is over, you can let go. God is sealing off heaven to create the next universe, so I’ve come to get you. Your brother has not become more patient in death. I suppose that he has been waiting for some time.” Dean chuckles hesitantly, nostalgia gleaming in his eyes like tears.

 

   “He still wants to see me? After everything?”

 

   “Of course. He was very adamant. However, he has requested that we take it out of your shared heaven when we wish to be… together.” Dean grins and his face lights up, and Sean Novak sees the layers peeling away to the man he must once have been.

 

   “So we just leave? You prise this thing off my arm and let the darkness have at it?”

 

   Cas nods. “Death stepped in and ordered Her to make a pact with my Father, that if we let her have this universe then we can have the next one. Maybe events will be different there. You will have some time before your reincarnation though.”

 

   “Fine by me. Think I’ve earnt some down time.”

 

   Sean wonders when the world stopped making sense. Dean seems to suddenly remember that Sean is there. “Oh, Cas could you put my buddy here on the fast track for reincarnation? He got kind of a bum deal, being born so close to the end and all. See if you can get it for the rest of the crew as well.”

 

   Cas looks at Dean as though he can do no wrong. “Of course, Dean. As you put it, the universe does ‘owe you a few’.”

 

   “Cool. Give me a minute, would you babe?”

 

   Cas turns his back, inspecting the flashing lights on the panels. Dean bends and picks something else from his bag, long and vicious and covered in teeth. He looks at Sean with sympathy and a smile. Sean knows what’s coming.

 

   “Close your eyes, Sean. It was nice knowing you, man. Better luck next time.”

 

   He thinks of all the people and friends he ever knew, all dead. Sean closed his eyes. He wanted to fight, but he can feel it now, there really is nothing left. He is only human. This was out of his control.

 

   Dean was right; he barely felt it when his head parted company with his neck.

 

   And he was gone.

 

.o0o.

 

   It was dark in the ship after the angel left, a soul cradled under its arm like it had so many millions of years ago. The only sounds the creaking of cooling metal.

 

   The bodies slumped where they had died, in beds, in the hallways, in each other’s arms. If it wasn’t for the stillness they could have been sleeping, but there was no one left to see them.

 

   By the still warm bodies in the engine room a few panels still flickered, the shutdown process for the engines still running. One by one, they winked off. The last one blinked, one last time.

 

   Then, there was Darkness.

 

  


End file.
